Chapter Eight: Bald Morrison

Liu Yueming’s gaze was cold as she stared at the bald head gleaming white in the sunlight. “He’s very strong.”

The old man took out his flask, opened it, drank a mouthful, said nothing, and then sealed it again.

Zhou Yu could feel the overwhelming aura pressing down on him. He struggled to turn his neck, but his view was blocked by a wall of darkness.

The long-limbed, long-legged African man, clutching his bleeding chest, stepped beside Zhou Yu, barring the bald man’s advance. Sweat beaded beneath his tight curls, pain flickering across his dark features, yet his eyes shone with unwavering resolve.

“Abdullah, you’re going to die sooner or later. What’s the rush?” The bald man halted and addressed the African.

Abdullah bared his teeth in a wide grin, his teeth flashing white. “This is my Chinese brother. He saved me just now, and his country has saved many of my people. He cannot die.”

A droplet of sweat coursed down Abdullah’s dark, smooth back and finally splashed onto the ground. Zhou Yu watched it vanish into the dust, then raised his head to look at the man’s broad back.

Zhou Yu’s wounded right index finger had stopped bleeding and was healing rapidly. He hoped Abdullah could buy him some time, but Abdullah was already injured. Facing the bald man’s might, he might lose his life. Zhou Yu didn’t want someone so loyal and grateful to die because of him.

“Then I’ll send you to meet Jesus first!” The bald man raised his hand to strike, but paused.

A dozen Africans gathered, forming a line in front of Zhou Yu. “He is our Chinese brother. He cannot die.”

Several Koreans and Pakistanis also shielded Zhou Yu, making their intentions clear: to live and die together.

The Russians and other nationalities stood aside, watching. Their participation in the earlier melee had been solely for personal gain, to weaken the others.

Those who had crossed into the Spiritual Realm had quickly formed factions. The American-led group with Japan and Korea trailing behind was the strongest. Other developed nations like Britain and France remained neutral. The rest joined either the Russian-led alliance or the African alliance.

Strangely, Zhou Yu was the only Chinese present. For such a vast nation, it was unthinkable that only one person had been chosen, but for now, no one had an answer to this mystery.

The African alliance slowly clustered around Zhou Yu, while the American-Japanese-Korean alliance closed ranks behind the bald man. A fiercer battle was about to erupt.

The bald man eyed Abdullah, frowning, then looked past the crowd to Zhou Yu. “Chinese boy! My name is Morrison! I’ll claim your life sooner or later.”

Morrison unexpectedly stepped back, de-escalating the situation, because he sensed a pair of icy eyes watching him—it was Liu Yueming. He frowned and thought, “Weren’t we told the locals wouldn’t interfere?”

With the Russian alliance eyeing the situation hungrily, Morrison feared that if he acted, they would seize the chance to expand. In the end, he refrained.

“My life is mine to decide!” Zhou Yu stated.

“What did he say?” Morrison frowned, unable to understand Chinese. A sly little Japanese next to him quickly translated, “He said he’ll use your head as a football.”

Hearing this, Zhou Yu was momentarily stunned—not because the Japanese was deliberately stirring trouble (after all, everyone here was an enemy by now), but because he realized he could understand their words. His halting English had barely gotten him through the college exam.

He remembered the Korean he’d encountered upon arrival. He’d understood him perfectly, even translated for Liu Yueming, despite never having studied Korean. What was happening?

Suddenly, a thought flashed through Zhou Yu’s mind. Internally, he asked, “Baidu, is that you?”

“It’s me. I’m translating for you, sending it straight to your mind,” came Baidu’s voice.

“But why can’t they understand me?” Zhou Yu glanced at Morrison’s thick wristwatch.

“No idea, their devices have all crashed,” Baidu replied playfully.

“Why are you still working?” Zhou Yu went on.

“My code is 001; I’m the first of my kind. I’m not that easy to crash,” Baidu said.

That answer seemed to clarify something in Zhou Yu’s mind, but the insight vanished as quickly as it came, like lightning across the sky.

“Can you read my thoughts?” Zhou Yu asked, alarmed. If Baidu could, then all his secrets and plans would be exposed. But he immediately shook his head; he’d doubted Baidu from the start. If the AI could read his mind, he’d never have seen through it.

“Capturing brainwaves is extremely difficult. I can’t do it unless you actively communicate with me. Of course, I can convert any information I capture directly into brainwaves and input them into your mind,” Baidu explained.

“Good! I hope you’ll always be this unyielding!” Morrison called out to Zhou Yu, then turned and walked away.

Zhou Yu nodded gratefully to those around him, then turned and limped to the great hall’s doors, where he sat on the threshold, closed his eyes, and rested.

After a while, he called Abdullah over. “Abdullah, what’s really going on here?” Baidu conveyed his intent in Abdullah’s native language.

“We all come from distant lands, carrying this,” Abdullah said, pointing to his wristwatch. “Each of us thought we were the only chosen one, but on arrival, we found many others. Then our watches stopped working and can’t be removed. The whites were always provoking us, and today the fighting finally broke out.”

After Abdullah finished, Zhou Yu asked, “How do your abilities work?”

Abdullah answered, “Didn’t your watch tell you? These are gifts—powers given to us to save the world. From what I’ve observed, these powers strengthen what we’re already best at, making us more formidable and aggressive, but our bodies remain as fragile as ever.”

Zhou Yu thought about what his own talent was—cellular activation, perhaps.

“What’s Morrison’s ability?” he asked.

Abdullah held his treated wound. “Morrison was an elite in the US Special Forces, could wrestle bears barehanded. Here, it’s like he has the strength of a dragon.”

Zhou Yu silently asked Baidu, “How strong is Morrison?”

Baidu replied, “Right now, only your watch is working. You can’t let anyone know, so you must ask me in secret.”

“Where is everyone from, and how did they get here?” Zhou Yu continued.

Abdullah quickly replied, “We’re from all over Earth, almost every country. We were brought here by the locals of the Spiritual Realm, or sent by various sects. Before the watches stopped, we could communicate with them, but now we can’t, so we’ve been gathered here.” Then he asked, “Where are your other Chinese brothers?”

“I seem to be the only one,” Zhou Yu admitted.

Abdullah was surprised. “Even the Koreans have several people. How can there be only one Chinese? Maybe your brothers haven’t arrived yet?”

In fact, Zhou Yu suspected the more likely answer was that the other Chinese travelers had all been killed. So he asked, “Abdullah, have you heard of Earth’s people being killed by the locals here?”

“Yes, I know of more than ten,” Abdullah replied.

Zhou Yu frowned and looked at the old man. “Is this the rumored power? Is the rumor true or not?”

The old man replied, “It should be true. Maybe some travelers were killed before they could reveal their identities. Any sect that knows someone is a traveler should send them to the Spiritual Realm.”

“Is being sent to the Spiritual Realm always like this?” Zhou Yu pointed at the bodies strewn across the square. “Are we just supposed to kill each other?”

“Perhaps the Spiritual Realm has its reasons. Look, someone’s coming—that must be the locals.” The old man glanced into the distance.

Zhou Yu squinted and saw figures approaching. He stood, eager for a better look, but suddenly his vision went black, and with a sharp thud, he collapsed to the ground, unconscious.